Inspiring Ingenuity

Alteryx, Bicycles and Teaching Kids Programming.


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Alteryx: Simple Batch Macros

This comment asks how to create a simple batch macro in Alteryx.  Batch macros can seem very intimidating, but they are really quite easy to build once you understand how they work.

The 1st thing to understand is that you will be building 2 modules, not 1.  The batch macro itself is designed to process a single item, however you define item, and the module outside sends in a list of items.  In the case of this specific question, he would like to read a list of files, do some simple processing on them and then write them back out. Continue reading →


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Alteryx: Amazon S3 & the Gallery

AmazonS3DownloadA variety of questions have come up from Alteryx users that all have the same answer:

  • The Alteryx Gallery will only allow me to upload about 100MB of data, how do I upload more?
  • I need to change my data daily/hourly/monthly for my Gallery module, how do I do that without re-uploading my entire app every time?
  • How do I persist data from run to run in a Gallery module?
  • How do I share data in Alteryx Desktop with coworkers/clients/partners without sending huge files around?

The answer to all of these questions is to use the Amazon S3 tools. What is S3?  Amazon says it is:

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Amazon S3 provides a simple web-services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. Continue reading →


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Alteryx: It Takes a Village

I get a lot of the credit for Alteryx – the product. Having been the original author and still the lead architect that makes sense, but there are a whole host of people who deserve the credit as much or more than I do. Some of the people are the fantastic programmers you have met every year at Inspire, like Linda or Rob among many others who have contributed hugely. Others are the team of product managers, like the original Alteryx product manager: Tara. More recently there has been an influx of new energy from people like George, Dan, Geoff, Ben and many others helping to take the product to the next level. Obviously my co-founders Libby & Dean have had at least as much impact on the product as I have as well. There are just so many people who have made such a huge impact on the product and the users of it that it would be impossible to name them all. Continue reading →


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Year in Review

The blog has been quiet over the holidays, but look for some regular new posts coming soon.  It has been fun writing, both the personal posts and the Alteryx related ones.  I have had a good time writing and have been happy with the number of people reading, including 8 posts with more than 200 views.  And please – I am always looking for new ideas for posts, that’s the hardest part.   Either leave a comment or email me at ned (at) inspiringingenuity (dot) net.

So once again, thanks for reading.

Top 5 Posts of 2013

And an honorable mention to the top non-Alteryx related post of the year:

Recent Posts not included in any months in review:

Previous Months in Review


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Raspberry Pi

My wonderful wife Nathalie surprised me this Christmas with a new computer!  That makes it sound like so much more than it really is though…  She gave me a Raspberry Pi, which is, by design, the most inexpensive fully functional computer ever, and maybe the smallest too.  It really was an awesome gift though, because a true geek loves nothing like learning, and the Pi is the ultimate learning/teaching computer. Continue reading →


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Winter Outdoors in Boulder

20131207_134541

Looking south from South Boulder Peak

Winter in Boulder can be a very mixed bag.  While it’s is possible to have 60° degree weather in January, it is just as likely to have a week, like last week, where the weather doesn’t get above 10°.  Even when the weather is cold and it gets dark early, there are still a large number of people who commute by bike.  I had one ride last week where is was 6° and I saw at least a half dozen people on the bike trails.  When it that cold though, I don’t ride for exercise, I only ride because I hate driving that much. Continue reading →


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New Ideas Needed

With the quantity of holidays between now and the end of the year, I am going to be posting a little more sporadically…   I am also looking for ideas for posts.  These can be interesting current event topics to research using Alteryx like the Food Desert post.  It can be difficulties in Alteryx that maybe I can solve like Reading XLSX Directly.  It can be ideas for future product features that I could prototype, like the series on Interactive HTML Visualizations…  It can be new ways to inspire kids to program.

Any and all new ideas are welcome.  Either leave a comment on this post, or if you wish to be more private, email me at ned (at) inspiringingenuity (dot) net.

Thanks for reading,

Ned.


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Alteryx: A Reusable NVD3 Macro

imageAs I am drawing to a close in exploring interactive charting in Alteryx, I wanted to create a macro for the people who say “Can’t I just have it now?”   One of the great things about Alteryx is the macro system and the fact that you kind of can have it now.  Once again, I am wrapping the NVD3 library as a starting point.  The macro has 4 different chart types exposed:  Line, Bar, Area and Scatter Plots.  I produced samples for the 1st three.  NVD3 supports lots more types of charts, but most of the rest take more specific user input or only work for a limited number of dimensions.  For this example I wanted to keep it simple.  Obviously if we were to actually productize a charting system like this, there would be lots more options, and probably not even limited to NVD3.

Continue reading →


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Ender’s Game

Ender's_game_coverFirst, let me say that I am aware of Orson Scott Card’s politics and in no way do I agree with them.  John Scalzi said it best.  I may never had read any of his works had I known his views before I read them, but it would have been my loss.  Great art is great art.

I 1st read the Ender’s Game short story sometime as a young teenager.  Sometime after the novel came out, I read it, and then I read it again.  I have read it to both of my daughters.  I am uncertain how many times I have read either the novel or the short story, but it is certainly more than I have read any other book. Continue reading →


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Greatest Generation of Mountain Bikers

imageI don’t think Valmont Bike Park in Boulder was built for kids.  It was somewhat controversial when it was being built because people thought it would only be used by a small niche of lycra clad cyclists.  After being open for a while, I think we can all call it a success. The surprising thing though, is it’s all kids (admittedly some of the “kids” my age).  There’s kids (like ours) that are just starting out in mountain biking, but there’s toddlers on balance bikes doing the pump tracks!  Their moms are out there pushing them! Continue reading →